


Operation IronSpangles

by reystarkrogers



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Fluff, Get Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 05:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17319290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reystarkrogers/pseuds/reystarkrogers
Summary: Bucky and Clint have noticed that Tony and Steve have a special kind of chemistry that's driving everyone insane. They set out to make things right.(Unfinished)





	Operation IronSpangles

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea for this story. However, I waited too long to update and my style's just different enough now that it's difficult to go back and update.
> 
> If you're reading this still, enjoy some oblivious sniper boys!

Bucky’s seen a lot of strange things in his day, but slimebots are definitely new to him.

He’s perched atop a--bank, maybe?--either way, it’s a building somewhere in Brooklyn, and Bucky and Clint have been dropped off there by Iron Man and Thor respectively. Clint got the short end of the deal on that one because he’d had to cling to Thor’s muscles on the ride up here and Bucky’d at least had the armor between him and Stark.

But Clint hadn’t looked all too upset by having felt up the god of thunder, so maybe Bucky’s actually the one who missed out.

Whatever.

Steve’s tight voice comes over comms, and Bucky grips his rifle and watches as he takes out six slimebots with his shield before somehow landing a twirling ballerina leap and continuing to dash down the street. Showoff.

“Barton, Barnes, take out as many as you can from up there. SHIELD has evacuated the area, so Widow: you’re on bot duty with me down below until we get the numbers under control. Hulk--yeah, you got it, buddy. Iron Man, Thor: keep up a perimeter and don’t let them out of the evacuation radius.”

“Aye, aye, Cap,” Tony says, smirk audible in his voice.

Tony and Steve have a special kind of chemistry, Bucky’s noticed. The flirtatious kind, mostly, but as with all things chemistry, explosions are a definite possibility, and Steve and Tony are no exception. If you flipped a coin on any given day, it would be hard telling whether one wanted to smash the other’s face with their own face or a fist.

Bucky can almost hear Steve gritting his teeth over comms and turns to share a grin with Clint, who’s about to head over to the opposite corner of the rooftop. Clint smirks back and rolls his eyes, sticking an arrow shaft between his teeth so his hands are free to snap his bow together.

Bucky will probably always be in awe of Clint’s--Hawkeye’s--skills despite his being totally human.

Clint’s brutally competent and Bucky sometimes loses a few moments watching him, but yes. Funny and reckless and altogether human.

Bucky and Clint have spent significant amounts of time together in sniper’s nests in various parts of the world and have become quite good at wiping out threats quickly as a unit. They’ve been friends ever since Bucky dragged his sorry, almost-unbrainwashed ass into Stark Tower and Clint offered him pizza and half a purple blanket on the couch when Bucky was still partially the Winter Soldier.

Since then, they’ve talked about everything from Bucky’s encounter with what Scotland thought was the Loch Ness Monster to Clint’s plans for a boomerang arrow. They play darts and shoot in the range and eat breakfast together. Clint’s not weirded out by Bucky’s arm and Bucky’s actually been allowed to touch Clint’s hearing aids. It’s nice.

Bucky’s not ashamed to admit that Clint’s definitely his favorite person this side of the century. He thinks it’s mutual--he knows he has Steve and Clint has Natasha, and Bucky still wonders sometimes if there’s more to Clint and Natasha’s friendship--anyway, the point is: he and Clint are friends.

Barnes and Barton, sniper pals for life.

The slimebots are done for in under an hour, but clean up’s more than twice as long. Steve’s been making the team stay and clean up from skirmishes lately--good PR, he says--and it turns out that slimebots have a surprising amount of small parts that are scattered all over the roads and sidewalks within Stark’s perimeter.

Bucky hates them.

Thor, Natasha, and Steve are unsurprisingly covered in slime and Banner’s gone off to de-hulk or whatever it is he does, so when the clean up's over, the team hightails it back to the tower.

Bucky follows behind Clint to hop into a SHIELD van and will be glad to never see another slimebot in his life.

*

After everyone cleans up and drifts back out into the common areas in search of food, Bucky looks on in mild horror as Tony wrangles Steve into agreeing to go out to a bar with a devastating smile and sheer force of will alone.

This triggers a domino effect of Steve strong-arming Bucky into going with them instead of “getting into shit with Clint” (which he _wasn’t going to,_  geez, Stevie). Bucky’s then easily able to convince Clint to come as well because Clint’s resistance to beer and Bucky is shaky at best, especially when he’s tired and Bucky pets his hair a little.

Bucky didn’t even have to literally twist his arm this time, and as the resident simultaneous Good Cop (e.g. hair petting) and Bad Cop (arm twisting), Bucky counts that as progress.

Natasha dismisses the outing with a cold stare, Thor’s long gone to investigate the source of the slimebot invasion somewhere in the Nine Realms (that will never not be weird to think about), and Bruce is apparently hibernating.

So it’s just the four of them, a faction that Clint immediately dubs “Clint and the Assholes” from where he’s lounging in the backseat of one of Tony’s outrageously extravagant cars, which makes Steve frown, Tony roll his eyes in the rearview mirror, and Bucky have to face out the window so Clint doesn’t see him try not to laugh.

Bucky settles himself on a poorly upholstered bar stool and sips at a mediocre beer, watching with mild interest as Tony and Steve laugh uproariously and trade increasingly ridiculous insults as they play pool, blue neon light glancing off Steve's pink-tinged ears as he maneuvers in the cramped space between the pool table and the wall.

Bucky’s pretty sure they're sweet on each other, but he’s afraid he'll somehow jinx it for Steve if he says anything about it out loud to him. That asshole couldn't stop himself from overthinking and choking the life out of a good thing if his life depended on it. Stark’ll probably kiss Steve silly the next time he brings coffee down to the lab anyways.

So Bucky doesn’t say anything to Steve and chooses instead to lean over and confide his suspicions to Clint, who just nods solemnly--actually more sleepily, Bucky thinks-- from his spot huddled up next to Bucky at the bar, muttering sage-sounding advice around the lip of his bottle about not opening a can of worms.

Speaking of a can of worms.

“So, are you and Natasha, like, a thing?” Bucky asks, taking a long pull from his bottle and trying to figure out why he’s suddenly so urgently curious about this.

Clint hums.

“Natasha's my girl and I'd kill for her and all--not that she'd need me to--ugh, she’ll probably kill me for saying that anyway--” Clint cuts himself off, shaking his head as if to clear it. “But, no. We're not together.”

Bucky nods, not sure what to make of the feeling of something in his chest unwinding.

Clint grins and waggles his eyebrows. “Why, you know someone who's interested in this?” He gestures expansively at himself, clad in ratty black sweatpants and a black hoodie that’s clearly identifiable as Hawkeye merch based on the light purple chevron printed across the chest.

Bucky blinks, lifting a shoulder in a quick shrug.

“Just like to know what's going on around me.”

“Too bad,” Clint says, shifting his gaze away from Bucky and back to his beer.

Clint begins to roll his now-empty bottle between his palms, scraping its glass bottom against the bar top loudly enough that the bartender stops wiping down the wood long enough to glare at Clint, who seems too lost in thought to notice.

Bucky rolls his eyes and gestures for the bartender to bring Clint another beer. When it’s set in front of him and the empty bottle is confiscated, Clint seems to check back in and swivels his head toward Bucky.

“You’re the best, Buck,” Clint says, a small smile tipping up the corner of his mouth as he lifts his bottle in Bucky’s direction and takes a swig. “A real gentleman.”

Bucky shakes his head, a warm feeling spreading in his chest as he returns his attention to the spectacle that is Tony and Steve’s game of pool. Tony’s eyes are a little glazed over as he intently watches Steve line up his next shot. Bucky can’t help but roll his eyes again because Steve’s definitely rolled up his sleeves for Tony’s benefit and--well, they’re just idiots, honestly.

“Hmm?” Clint says, looking back at Bucky to read his lips better.

Bucky’d apparently said that last part--”idiots”--out loud, and, well.

“They’re idiots,” Bucky says, gesturing at Tony and Steve with the hand holding his beer. “They’re obviously into each other and the dancing around is just getting on my damn nerves--”

“Barnes. I hate to break it to you, but they’re grown men and they’re going to have to figure it out for themselves, as annoying as it is for the rest of us.”

Bucky sighs. Maybe so, but he’s not sure either of them aren’t so obtuse that they’ll go on like this indeterminately, eventually wreaking havoc in the tower and the city.

Worst case scenario, but still.

But, Bucky thinks, Clint’s probably right. It’s not Bucky’s problem, so he goes back to drinking his beer.

*

It’s officially become Bucky’s problem.

Clint slams open the door to Bucky’s floor and marches into Bucky’s bedroom, throwing himself facedown on the empty side of Bucky’s bed, punching and growling into a pillow.

“Good morning to you, too,” Bucky says, sitting up against the headboard and rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

JARVIS had notified Bucky that Clint was on the warpath to his doorway a few minutes before so that Bucky wouldn’t have a repeat of the fight-or-flight scenario that had played out the first time Clint walked into Bucky’s quarters like he lived there.

As it is, Bucky likes Clint being in his space and is thankful for JARVIS--even when he’s an asshole who tells Steve Bucky’s whereabouts at will, which, Bucky supposes, can’t be helped.

Bucky feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as Clint mumbles something into the pillow.

“Can’t hear you, Clint,” Bucky says, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of his sleep shirt.

Clint turns his head a bit, freeing his mouth but stubbornly keeping his forehead pressed into the pillow.

“I’m gonna kill Steve and Tony,” Clint complains.

Bucky smirks.

“You’re going to kill Captain America and Iron Man,” Bucky says. “Do I need to notify the World Security Council?”

Clint tries to hide his smile in the pillow and swats at Bucky when he pulls it out from under his head. Clint just stays there, head against the mattress, and heaves a sigh.

It’s been a few days since “Clint and the Assholes” went out to the bar and Bucky has watched with increasing irritation as Tony and Steve have reverted back to the explosively angry side of their relationship. Something about Tony holing up in the lab barefoot for more than a day and causing a literal explosion that left a second-degree burn on Tony’s arm that Steve had to patch up--

Anyway, it ended up in a days-long screaming match that Bucky deciphered as the usual “Steve caring loudly at Tony and Tony insisting that the tech he’s building is necessary for the safety of the team and the world while disregarding his own personal safety,” but it’s gone on for a couple more days than usual.

Point is, Bucky feels Clint’s pain.

Bucky scoots down until he’s lying on his back again and Clint rolls over, letting his left side press up against Bucky’s right. They stare at the ceiling until Clint breaks the silence.

“You were right. We have to do something.”

Bucky glances at Clint and grins.

“I thought you said it would be opening a can of worms.”

“Nah,” Clint says, flapping a hand. “Sometimes worms are necessary. Plus, they'd be good together, if they’d just get their heads out of their asses.”

“Yeah, and they might actually live to see next week,” Bucky says, and Clint nods agreeably. “So what’s your grand plan, Hawkeye?”

“Probably we’ll have to get them to admit their feelings to each other because they won’t have the sense to believe any of us,” Clint says, waving an arm in the air to punctuate his point. “I’m thinking multiple phases, undercover ops--”

“Barton, you realize that if they catch us, Tony will actually put on the suit and murder us, repulsor-style, and Steve will actually die of embarrassment.”

Clint sits up and jabs a finger into Bucky’s chest, leaning over him to get in his face.

“Are you saying the Winter Soldier is afraid--”

Bucky grabs Clint’s hand off his chest, sitting up and forcing him back into the headboard.

“I’m saying the _former_ Winter Soldier doesn’t want his ass handed to him by a couple of lunatics driven insane by unresolved sexual tension.”

Bucky drops Clint’s arm and sits back on his ass across from Clint, who’s just kind of blinking back at him. Bucky glances down and sees the most awful-looking pair of sweatpants he’s ever seen, worse even than the ones Clint had worn to the bar, and he quickly reaches a decision.

Bucky jabs a metal finger into a hole near Clint’s knee, making him jump.

“All right. I’ll help you do it if you go clothes shopping with me today. You’ve been putting it off for months and every pair of pants and a lot of shirts you own are going to disintegrate right off your body. It’s ridiculous.”

“You’d be lucky to see this ass,” Clint huffs, rolling his eyes, but the quirk at the corner of his lips gives him away as he shuffles off the bed and stretches.

Bucky grins, moving to get up as well.

“Not only have I seen that ass--shut up, you remember the decontamination showers from the lizard spit--but I know it’s just as ridiculous as the rest of you.”

Clint shoves at Bucky and Bucky retaliates in kind, but it’s not too long and they’re on their way to the least disagreeable clothing store within a few miles of the tower.

*


End file.
